The trials and tribulations of the everyday Childminder doing what she must to keep her head above the water.

Been called worse

I got called a doyenne the other day. I liked it because not only does just about everything sound so much better in any Romance language of the Indo-European family but mostly because I was just so impressed that this particular guy even had this word in his repertoire. So really, it just goes to show how we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover doesn’t it? I mean, I was just so impressed that he’d actually done his research and chosen this word so carefully, the petit futé that he is. He’d chosen it because in my last blog I happened to disclose how lousy my French is and I actually think he really was trying to throw me a back-handed compliment but hey, compliments of any kind at all don’t come as often as they used to so I’ll take whatever I can get. I’m just glad he’s reading my stuff coz now I know for sure that at least one person is.

Now naturally I took being called a badass this eloquently as a bit of a compliment. [Darn it, I just broke the first unspoken rule]. But then it dawned on me that he’d done his research alright. (I was tired okay? I wasn’t as sharp as usual). He knew every little job I do. He knew about the blogging, the childcare, the training, the mentoring, the charity work, the voluntary work, the lot. And while he was getting his rocks off by sneakily implying that I’m a bit of a “all work and no play” kinda gal I was getting kinda creeped out by the thought I might have a stalker in my midst. Why should I explain to this complete stranger that all the roles I have are completely interwoven and that I couldn’t imagine doing one single one of them without the other? That one role simply organically feeds into the next and the next and the next – to the point where if you ask me what I do [for a living] the only honest answer I can give is “I work for kids”. Because ultimately that’s what every single thing I do is for.

And it’s not even as if any of it feels like work most of the time. I get to meet lots of interesting people and go to lots of pretty places and stay in lots of lovely pads. Heck, most of the venues for meetings are in bistros, gin or cocktail bars (yeah really) and smart hotels so they don’t even feel much like work at all, so dull? Moi?

But for all my efforts (and trust me, I am worn out by Thursdays) I’m never going to be rich. Not even close. And let’s be honest, if I wanted to be wealthy I’d hardly be working in the early years sector at all now would I? But it’d be disingenuous of me if I let you believe that I’m just one of those people who likes to keep busy or that I’m fundamentally just a really good person. I’m not saying that I’m not, it’s just that I see everything I do as CPPD for me. It makes me keep up to date with things. It makes me constantly re-evaluate what I’m doing. It makes me open my eyes to the challenges that other people are facing and it helps make me a betterpractitioner. And what can possibly be so bad about that?

So I just smiled and thanked him for taking an interest in my work. What else could I do?